Jury orders Evenflo to pay millions in suit

Published Friday, July 27, 2007

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - A jury has ordered child safety seat maker Evenflo Co. to pay $10.4 million to the parents of a 4-month-old boy who died of head injuries in a car crash.

The district court jury awarded $3.7 million in punitive damages to Chad and Jessica Malcolm yesterday, a day after deciding the Livingston couple should receive $6.7 million in compensatory damages for the death of their son, Tyler.

Evenflo has lost at least three cases over its car seats, for a total of $19.6 million, the couple’s attorney said. The company said it would appeal the latest verdict to the state Supreme Court. "While Evenflo certainly agrees that it was a tragedy for the Malcolm family that their child died, we feel it was the result of an extraordinary car accident," Evenflo attorney Earl Gunn said. "We do not believe that the product is defective."

Tyler was killed in July 2000. He struck his head on his car seat’s hard plastic shell when the seat was ejected from a vehicle in a rollover.